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Leah Esguerra is a licensed family and marriage therapist, but instead of heading to an office every day to soothe couples’ marital tensions, she reports to the San Francisco Public Library. There she roams the stacks, looking for patrons who might need her help. Some of these patrons are homeless and are looking for a safe place to stay for the day. Others are actively looking for resources, such as showers and food, or just a place to warm up for a while. No matter their need, Esguerra...

America’s history of racial inequality continues to haunt us. The genocide of Native people, 250-year enslavement of black people, adoption of “racial integrity laws” that demonized ethnic immigrants and people of color, and enforcement of policies and practices designed to perpetuate white supremacy are all part of our difficult past. This country has witnessed great triumph, innovation, and progress, but we are burdened by a painful history that we have yet to adequately acknowledge. In...

Nearly 12 years after Twitter first launched in 2006, it has become a global behemoth with 330 million monthly active users, supporting 500 million Tweets every day . Tweets are now a part of daily life, whether they are public conversations about social movements, individual commentary about current events, or political announcements from elected officials. Because advocates are increasingly leveraging social channels like Twitter to influence policy decisions, researchers at Berkeley Media...

I started a weekly peer support group for women survivors of trauma in April 2018. It took a few weeks to get any uptake on the offer. In the beginning a few people who knew me trickled in to provide some encouragement. Some people working at the center that eventually agreed to give me access to a room to host the event, told me that if people got the sense that I was in it for the long haul, they would then start taking me up on my offer. I was determined to persist, so I stuck it out even...

Mental health concerns, like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, can affect a student’s ability to concentrate, form friendships and thrive in the classroom. Educators and school counselors often provide Social and Emotional Learning programs (SEL) in order to help these students, as well as school-based therapeutic support groups. However, even in these forums, getting teenagers to speak about their problems can be challenging, especially when they feel like outsiders...

Journalist Howard Bryant discusses the history of social protest among African-American athletes. His new book, The Heritage, traces the tradition back to Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and others. [To listen to this podcast by TERRY GROSS, go to https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619515355/how-taking-a-stand-for-justice-can-threaten-the-careers-of-black-athletes ] For another story on this topic, see To Play, Protest Or Both? Book Traces 'The Heritage' Of Black Athlete Activists .

San Franciscans don’t have far to travel to go to the nation’s most community-minded library: It’s right here in town. Library Journal, the venerable trade publication, has named the San Francisco Public Library the Library of the Year. Awarded since 1992, the prize recognizes the library that best serves its community, through innovative programming, and has done the most to draw patrons. [For more on this story by John McMurtrie, go to...

Libraries as Affordable Housing Partners? Once upon a time, the Internet was expected to lead to the end of libraries. A 2004 Economist article, for example, began with a statement that “Public libraries will be redundant by 2020 [based] on current trends.” But instead, as NPQ has noted , libraries’ importance has gone up, driven largely by their increasingly vital role as community centers. NPQ ’s Ruth McCambridge gave a few examples: “The Chicago Public Library offers a free ‘ Maker Lab ’...

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Even in the digital era, libraries are high-traffic zones, hosting more than 1.5 billion visits annually. On any given day in Philadelphia, the Free Library welcomes a stream of visitors, who arrive early in the morning to use the computers, congregate after school for homework help, and join a rich range of programs, from story time, to job fairs, to classes for English language learners at the Culinary Literacy Center. Here and across the country, public libraries offer vitally important...

In Locking Up Our Own , Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Forman Jr. argues that African-American leaders helped shape policies that harmed black communities. Originally broadcast July 17, 2017. [To listen to this interview by Terry Gross, go to https://www.npr.org/2018/05/11/610385205/how-black-leaders-unwittingly-contributed-to-the-era-of-mass-incarceration ]